Weather Markets

How do weather markets work?

Kalshi offers a wide variety of weather-related markets that allow users to trade contracts based on temperature movements or precipitation amounts in specific cities, from New York City to Los Angeles. Traders can speculate on whether a city will reach a certain high temperature or fall within a particular range. All weather market contracts settle based on the final climate report issued by the National Weather Service (NWS), typically released the following morning.

How Do I Trade on Weather Markets?

Kalshi creates a prediction market around a specific temperature threshold for a given location. For example: “Highest temperature in Chicago on April 15, 2025?”

Contract prices for temperature ranges may shift as new weather data (e.g., forecasts, model runs, satellite images, observations) becomes available.

The next morning, the market settles based on the high temperature recorded in the final NWS Daily Climate Report. Market determination may be delayed in the rare instances of a) a high temperature is not consistent with 6-hr or 24-hr highs reported by METAR or b) the final NWS Climate Report high temperature value is lower than previous preliminary report.

Not all weather data is the same. Apps like AccuWeather, iOS Weather, or Google Weather may be useful for guidance but do not determine contract outcomes. The only source used for settlement is the NWS Daily Climate Report.

Daylight Savings Time

The NWS Climate Reports use local standard time when reporting daily high temperatures. This means that during Daylight Saving Time, the high temperature will be recorded between 1:00 AM and 12:59 AM local time the following day — not based on the standard midnight-to-midnight range.

Finding Kalshi market's relevant source information

Kalshi market for highest temp in NYC on March 17th, 2025.

Here is an example of a weather market and how to find the relevant outcome (high temp). This example is for Mar 17, 2025 which was 59 degrees F. Above, you can see the Kalshi market and its determined outcome. Below, is the source data from the outcome verification source (linked in market rules).

*Make sure you are viewing the temperature from the same date as the Kalshi market.

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